Our leadership team is comprised of some of the greatest and most innovative minds of the healthcare and biomedical industries. They are the driving forces that keep us at the forefront of all that we do.

Dr. Steve Miff joined PCCI as the president and CEO in January 2017. In his current role he oversees the complete strategic and operational responsibilities for all of PCCI. Before joining PCCI, Dr. Miff served as the senior vice president and general manager at Sg2, focusing on strategy and innovation to refine and broaden Sg2 solutions and drive customer impact and growth. He had overall P&L responsibility for the business and directly oversaw the Intelligence, Consulting, and Product Strategy and Management teams.
Prior to Sg2, he was the senior vice president of clinical strategy, population health and performance management at VHA. Dr. Miff was a member of the senior management team and the executive oversight committee. His role with VHA included strategy, development, and delivery and P&L responsibility across 7 national business units with a total of over $25 million in revenue. Dr. Miff launched and grew 3 new enterprise businesses, led the development and rollout of several key strategic partnerships/acquisitions and was a senior member of the integration team for the VHA, UHC and Novation merger.

Dr. Miff earned his PhD and MS degrees in biomedical engineering and a BA in economics from Northwestern University. He has been an adjunct professor of biomedical engineering for more than 5 years and has authored more than 100 thought leadership and peer-reviewed publications. He has served on the Senior Board of Examiners for the Baldrige National Quality Program and on the Executive Quest for Quality Prize Board Committee for the American Hospital Association. He participated as a Big Brother and has been the corporate sponsor for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Dr. Miff is The Community Council of Dallas’ 2017 Social Innovator of the Year award recipient.

Donna Persaud, MD, is Vice President of Clinical Leadership at PCCI a leading, nonprofit, artificial intelligence and cognitive computing organization. She is a board certified pediatrician with 30 years of experience serving the medically underserved.

Dr. Persaud has extensive experience in advancing healthcare delivery systems and population health by connecting traditional medical practices and innovative technology with a special focus on social determinants of health. Prior to holding her position at PCCI, Dr. Persaud was Chief and Medical Director of Pediatrics for Parkland Health and Hospital System, Dallas County large safety net serving a diverse and under resourced population. Accomplishments over that tenure include project leadership of $45M Delivery System Reform incentive Payment Program demonstration projects aimed at dramatically increasing the number of patients with access to person centered care. Build and implement electronic disease registries to address gaps in care and improve patient outcomes. Additionally, Dr. Persaud collaborated with Parkland’s provider owned Medicaid Managed Care Organization to create a pediatric population health asthma program driven by predictive analytics for 17 urban Dallas practices resulting in 12 M in savings over 3 years from decreased ER visits, and hospitalizations.

Over her career Dr. Persaud has published in peer reviewed journals on health care education, asthma outreach programs in schools, shared medical visits, child abuse, and HPV vaccine decision making.

Dr. Persaud completed her medical degree at the University of West Indies, Pediatric Residency at University of Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital and Academic Fellowship at UTMB Galveston. She also holds an MBA from the University of Texas, Dallas. She has received several awards including Parkland Distinguished Physician Award and has served on National Committees for Pediatric Quality Metrics and Expert Panels for Social Determinant of Health Screening. She remains on the medical staff of Parkland Health & Hospital System and Children’s Health and serves as Volunteer Faculty for UT Southwestern and Guyana Pediatrics.

Aida Somun, MBA, PMP is Vice President of Operations with 15+ years of experience driving profitable growth, cost savings and delivery. Aida ensures operational excellence through consistent contributions to bottom line efficiency, performance and process improvements. She is most passionate about leading and influencing strategic decision making for operationalizing the right innovative programs focused on improving individual’s health, both physical as well as socio-economic.

Prior to joining PCCI, Aida served as a General Manager of Personal Inc., successfully launching a data encryption platform, later successfully acquired by top 10 lead innovation companies in the personal data control space. Aida led a core team of 40 software developers, quality assurance and ops engineers. The importance of protecting one’s private health information was a topic Aida was especially interested in.

Aida’s experience at Personal Inc. was preceded by her role of IT Director at Prevent, a multi-national company operating in the automotive industry. At Prevent, Aida lead organization wide initiatives focused on introducing innovative IT solutions. The project with most impact was the successful deployment across the entire group (cross-country and cross-continent) of in-house engineered solution for manufacturing, controlling and KPI harmonization. She was nominated by the Board of Directors to serve as the Principle Advisor to the Prevent Board for IT Strategy.

Aida’s early professional career started in Project Management at Applied Materials Inc. whereby achieving significant gains in cycle time reduction and cost savings through Six Sigma and statistical process control methods, resulting in more efficient ways of system testing. Prior to Applied Materials, Aida served as a Lead Electrical/Software Engineer at Toshiba International Inc.

Aida holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Electrical Engineering, minoring in Mathematics from Texas A&M University, and an MBA from University of Sarajevo, School of Economics.

Vikas Chowdhry, MS, MBA, is PCCI’s Chief Analytics and Information Officer with 15+ years of healthcare experience. He works closely with data science and clinical teams at PCCI to develop machine learning driven technologies and products that can empower clinical and social services providers and individuals to create communities that are healthier and more productive. Additionally, Vikas has a keen interest in the area of leveraging incentive programs to influence patient behavior.

Prior to joining PCCI, Vikas served in multiple leadership roles at Epic. During his 15 years at Epic, he lead multiple product teams to develop and enhance enterprise software for Radiology Information Systems, Labor & Delivery, OB/GYN, Population Health, and Predictive Analytics. He also led the organization’s vision and execution for predictive analytics and machine learning domains including pricing, go-to-market and growth strategies.

He has an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Jodhpur, India, a graduate degree in Computer Science from University of Illinois and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Mr. Roth directs the legal strategy of PCCI. He has twenty years of experience in health law. Mr. Roth brings to PCCI specific expertise in advising hospitals, health systems, academic medical centers, managed care entities, and other healthcare providers on a variety of matters, including business and technology transactions, HIPAA, electronic medical records, managed care, day-to-day operations, and regulatory and compliance matters. Mr. Roth received his JD at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and his MPH at Harvard University School of Public Health.

Tim Prendergast, CPA, is the Director of Finance at PCCI with over 25 years of financial management experience. He is responsible for PCCI’s financial strategy in conjunction with the company’s business plan. He directs the activities associated with accounting and finance and ensures timely and accurate financial data for decision making is available.

Tim got his start in public accounting as an auditor with Deloitte. He later moved into corporate accounting working for Nursefinders and The Image Bank. He served as Controller for OpTel Telecom, Bright House Networks’ Central Florida Division and CBS Radio’s Dallas Market. Tim has spent the last seven years as a consultant with Tatum LLC. While at Tatum, Tim gapped several different roles at Fossil, served as a project manager for a software implementation at Galderma Laboratories, and implemented several business processes at Healthmarkets.

He has a BBA in Accounting from the University of Texas at Arlington and is a certified public accountant, licensed by the State of Texas.

Dr. Keith Kosel, is Vice President of Strategic Enterprise Relationships at the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), a leading non-profit artificial intelligence and cognitive computing organization. In this role, Dr. Kosel oversees the establishment and maintenance of relationships and partnerships between PCCI and its key stakeholders and partners. Dr. Kosel has responsibility for introducing innovative solutions and advisory services, and managing engagements to help clients address pressing needs related to population health, quality and safety and patient engagement. Dr. Kosel also works with the Grants Team at PCCI to help identify appropriate external funding opportunities and draft award-winning proposals ranging from small pilot projects to multi-year, multi-million-dollar demonstration projects.

Prior to PCCI, Dr. Kosel was Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at Vizient Inc. (formerly VHA Inc.) in Irving, TX. In this role Dr. Kosel oversaw the Public Policy and Government Relations Office in Washington DC, that worked with Congress and the Administration on matters of healthcare policy and economics. He also led the Government Programs Group that was responsible for administering all government programs at the Federal and State levels, including multiple quality and safety improvement contracts with CMS and AHRQ. Before becoming SVP at Vizient, Dr. Kosel led the Vizient Hospital Engagement Network that was a part of the CMS Partnership for Patients initiative that resulted in dramatic reductions in patient harms nationwide. Prior to Vizient, Dr. Kosel was Director of Clinical Programs at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan where he built, implemented and oversaw disease management, case management and utilization management programs.

Dr. Kosel received his PhD in medicine from the University of Iowa College of Medicine, his MHSA from the University of Michigan and his MBA from the University of Detroit. Dr. Kosel has authored numerous publications and has held various faculty positions at the graduate school and medical school levels. He is currently on the faculty at the Texas Woman’s University where he teaches a course in quality and patient safety in the College of Health Professions.